AI and UX | The UX Designer's Guide to AI

In this episode of "Faster Horses," the hosts, Paul and Mark, delve into the world of AI and UX. They discuss how AI has become increasingly prevalent in various industries and platforms, with a particular focus on social media. Paul shares their experience in creating their own AI tool, GhostPosts.ai, with the aims to assist users in generating better social media posts and written content.

The hosts emphasise the importance of making AI accessible and ethical, with the goal of enhancing the quality of content on platforms like social media. They envision 
AI as a tool that can replace mundane or  bland content with more valuable content. The hosts also discuss concerns about the potential homogenisation of online content due to AI, as well as the fear that AI might replace jobs.

In summary, the episode explores the impact of AI on user experience, highlighting the role of AI in content creation and the need for ethical and accessible AI tools. It also touches on the potential challenges and benefits associated with the widespread adoption of AI in various industries.

Transcript

Paul: 0:02

Punch it.

Mark: 0:02

Excellent, we're recording for the first time in...

Paul: 0:05

What a year. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark: 0:07

I think it would be four days off the year, precisely. I'm going to stop moving around so much so that the chair doesn't keep squeaking on me.

Paul: 0:17

How have you been, Mark?

Mark: 0:19

Over the past, uh, 362 days, um, yeah. I know, thank you. I've been okay. Yeah, I've been all right. I can't say there's an awful lot happened for me. Um, I've genuinely just drawn a complete blank. It's you and Nick that have been through a lot more than than I have in the past year. Um, I've not been doing anything too exciting. I fell in love. I will say that, yes, I've got a partner and we've been together for seven months now, so that seems to be going well. Um, but other than that, my year has been completely unremarkable.

Paul: 0:59

Ah,

Mark: 1:00

Yeah, just a continuation of lockdown for me. Remote working.

Paul: 1:04

suppose.

Mark: 1:04

All the same. All the same. What about you, Paul? How have you been over the past 362 days?

Paul: 1:11

Wow. A lot has changed. Um, a lot of eventful things. Where do I start this could take the whole hour.

Mark: 1:18

I know, I know.

Paul: 1:19

So i'll skip to it. I've uh, so i've gone Set my own business up called Design for Humans. I set another business up called GhostPosts Ai which uh leads us quite nicely in today's topic, uh, which will be good then I also do a bit of work for a another startup called Zally who are using behavioral biometrics and AI, uh, to kill passwords. That's the first part of our mission.

Mark: 1:48

Like that a lot.'cause I absolutely hate, well, what I will call the authentication process for them.

Paul: 1:56

Even when you put two factor authentication in, you know, if someone's got your device, they could still bypass that. And yeah, people use, uh, kind of like password, saving apps or things like that, but just one password to break in. Then you've got the keys to the kingdom. Crazy. It's crazy. It's crazy.

Mark: 2:16

A lot of, a lot of these, these passwords I, I feel, are intended to be used as. Deterrents more than anything, knowing that something is password protected. And, you know, from the kind of hacker that would just type in password 1, password 2, password 3, until they got something right. Um, and I'm reminded of, um, so, my brother Christopher has a hobby, which he picked up over the past year or so. Uh, which is lockpicking. Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's got the most bizarre collection of hobbies. but... He showed me videos where people have picked locks by hitting them with the exact same lock in a certain way and both padlocks have just sprang open.

Paul: 2:56

Oh wow,

Mark: 2:56

Um, and so I feel like a lot of like, authentication. It's a bit like that. If anyone took the time, you could just, you could just type in the right thing and get the password pinged right back at you. That's

Paul: 3:10

Yeah. Yeah,

Mark: 3:11

the case, but, um, well, that's very interesting.

Paul: 3:14

this is, yeah, we should say what we're, yeah. So this is Faster Horses. So

Mark: 3:19

Oh, yeah, shit. Yeah.

Paul: 3:21

um, what we are now series five.

Mark: 3:24

I think it's something like that. Series four, series five, we've, we've been on hiatus for a year because of life events. And the eagle eyed listener will notice that they've only heard two voices so far. And that's because Nick is, I was gonna say Nick is no longer with us, which makes it sound like he's died. He's

Paul: 3:43

ha! Definitely, he's definitely alive.

Mark: 3:46

Definitely alive, he's doing very well. Um, him and his partner have... Recently had a little sprog. A little, a little Nick and Drew has appeared. Um, and so of course, that's taken up the majority of his time, right now. That's not to say, of course, yeah, absolutely, congratulations, Nick. It's not to say, of course, he won't ever be back. But, um, we really wanted to get back on the bandwagon with recording, didn't we?

Paul: 4:14

back on the horse surely./

Mark: 4:16

on the horse, oh! Why are we even here?

Paul: 4:21

ha! Ha

Mark: 4:22

Why are we even here? Um, so yeah, get back on the, get back on the horse with recording. Try and do it a little better, a little faster, a little, uh, because that's what people have asked for, they want the faster horse, so that's what we'll give them. Um, we've done an episode on that origin story, for those who, who are keen to, to hear about why we're called faster horses, and the misconception therein. Um, Yeah, that's it. So, um, it felt like the right time to start. I think this episode's probably going to be a little shorter and we'll see some new, um, assets as it were. We'll probably redo the intro, consider it's a new season. Um, I've been making all these commitments for us now, Paul. I hope you don't mind. Yeah, our, uh, our four listeners are gonna, like, really, really hold us to this lot.

Paul: 5:15

definitely. Yeah. Little faster. Uh, a little more horsey and

Mark: 5:20

hmm. Mm hmm.

Paul: 5:22

but we're still with the same from and insight, uh, into the world of UX technology products, whatever's going on, and, uh, some of the hardships we face, in our daily woes,

Mark: 5:38

Absolutely. Absolutely. We're hoping this season to have more guests on and more outside insight because three is a magical number so, you know, it means that me and Paul won't just have to sit and pretend to find each other funny for the next however many years.

Paul: 5:54

Yeah, we'll get somebody on who's really bemused about the process.

Mark: 5:59

Yeah. Um, but yeah, let's, so today's topic, you mentioned, uh, that we would segue nicely into it. So I'm just going to do a hard right turn into our topic. We wanted to talk about AI and UX

Paul: 6:14

Yeah, it

Mark: 6:15

AI has. Had one hell of a year,

Paul: 6:18

It has, hasn't it? It seems to be everywhere.

Mark: 6:21

yeah, absolutely everywhere, I mean, LinkedIn is absolutely obsessed with it right now, um, and everyone's a bit terrified of it, but I want to start, I've got my own opinions on it, um, but I wanted to start by talking more about the AI stuff that you've been doing,

Paul: 6:39

Oh, yeah, thanks, Mark.

Mark: 6:40

Over the past year or so you've, uh, So, um,

Paul: 6:43

Yeah,

Mark: 6:44

We've been involved with, with it. So do tell.

Paul: 6:46

I met an amazing guy called Liam Brennan, who's, uh, who's autistic. He's got ADHD, which, um, yeah, which You know, is a bit of a superpower in itself. Um, and he's got all these crazy ideas and we sat down and met up in Manchester. And, he showed me the little prototype of what was Ghost Posts AI. um, it was very rough around the edges. But basically what he wanted to do was help him. Make better posts, whether on social media or kind of writing about things. And he said like GPT or there was other AI out there, BARD or other things, you know, you can go on there, but you kind of need to know the answer. To get what you want, otherwise you've kind of generated content, and then you go, I have to write it, I have to re write it, and then before you know it, you've kind of gone, well, I could have just written this myself.

Mark: 7:49

Mhm. Yeah.

Paul: 7:52

Yeah, so we had a chat and I said, why don't we make it accessible and ethical and We went oh, yeah. Yeah, so we've created this tool where you can, on the rails, create a post that is, you basically, you choose the industry, you choose your target audience, and you choose what you want to do, put in a couple of keywords, and away you go, and then you've got a post, which is quite nice. So we're taking away the blank page, taking away that thinking, and putting some better content out on social media. So rather than people ranting about stuff, or the drivel that is LinkedIn.

Mark: 8:32

Mm hmm.

Paul: 8:33

um, hopefully I'll put some decent content out there. They want to do that. Yeah.

Mark: 8:40

you know, can actually learn from, or that actually is insightful. Absolutely.

Paul: 8:45

Hopefully. Depends what you do with it.

Mark: 8:47

Well, it depends categories you allow people to, what industries they're from, you know.. Mm

Paul: 8:52

Yeah, we're pretty diverse. So, um, yeah. Any feedback, any industries that are not on there, let me know.

Mark: 8:59

you go. There's our shameless pug for the day. Yeah. GhostPost AI.

Paul: 9:05

Yeah, AI is... everywhere, isn't it? And I think, you know, I think a lot of kind of like in, in terms of UX as well, I think there's a lot of AI that can do, and a lot of people are a bit worried about AI as well, kind of like, will it replace their jobs? Will it take want to do? And, you know, we, we talked about the Dribble effect as well, and of everything being very similar, you know, and is AI going to propel that? Into more of a similar vein in the future, so we've got less diversity on the web. You know, and everything's going to be very generic. And I think that's a lot of fears and a lot of presumptions come into it. But yeah, what's your take, Mark?

Mark: 9:48

agree. Well, I think that AI is, um, like every, every other disruptive technology is going to immediately be rejected. Um, and it's going to be sensationalized. I think it's been sensationalized hugely at the minute and the direction I think it's been sensationalized in is that people think it's a lot better than it is.

Paul: 10:10

I think you're right.

Mark: 10:12

I think whenever I've looked into, so there's a website I, I frequently check, which is called, there's an AI for that.

Paul: 10:19

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark: 10:20

And it's essentially a catalogue of every AI. Uh, and if I have a quick look now, um, it tells you the count of how many AI softwares there are now. There are currently 7,955

Paul: 10:35

Wow.

Mark: 10:36

softwares. And when I last checked this a couple of months ago, there was 3,000. So, people are, people are jumping on this faster horse. Um,

Paul: 10:45

Nice.

Mark: 10:46

thank you. But what I, when I did a bit of digging into it, and I've not done a lot of digging, I... I've not got the kind of the code understanding to go behind the scenes or under the hood, but I noticed when I've been using these different AIs, it is the same, I'd say a handful, maybe three or four, large language models or, or databases essentially, with a different layer of UX over the top to try and hone it down into something that's actually usable. Because what we currently have with ChatGPT is an AI bot that is incredibly generic, so... What people are doing is seeing that potential applying it to a specific task and then just creating a UX layer that channels people into that pathway So I'm seeing AI at the moment entirely as a UX problem I think we've got this tool and you know, whenever we've had Disruptive tools have been people against them. The light bulb was one, the internet was another, uh, the wheel. I'm sure its people who were like,

Paul: 11:51

Yeah.

Mark: 11:53

what's wrong with just dragging stones around? Um, so I think that what we're getting, what we're seeing is this. Push back to what is just a tool and like when most tools are first released or provided they're not the potential isn't fully understood and To use a very direct analogy when you have a hammer everything looks like a nail And I think that's a lot of what's happening now. There's absolutely no nuance on how AI is being used Uh, beyond, well beyond a bit of automation, in

Paul: 12:29

Yeah. Yeah.

Mark: 12:30

At least for the past year or so, when it's things are just kicking off. Um, and there's a lot of misinformation, and there's a lot of fear mongering. Uh, because that's what gets clicks, and that's what gets page likes. When in reality, what we have is a pretty stupid, um, algorithm that just plucks information out of... You know, out of a large language model and presents it as its own stuff. Um, there have been so many errors and mistakes. There was one... There was... My... So my sister works at the University of Bolton and she was witness the first event of someone being caught for using AI to generate their, essays. Oh, this is in Bolton. I'm sure it's happened in other parts of the

Paul: 13:13

countries. yeah. Yeah.

Mark: 13:14

and stuff, but the way the way they were caught was again because they were entirely dependent on it They clearly must have said to ChatGPT Write me an essay enter and just submitted it didn't even read it through because this was a I think it was an essay on leadership and it quoted a book of wizardry that I think related to the Harry Potter, universe in some way. Ok, so not, you know, not, not what would be typically seen as academic material of the time. So, that was... And, and that, I think that kind of epitomizes the way I see AI currently being employed in its first iterations. But it's very, very immature, where, you know, we see, I'm seeing a lot of similarities between it and automation. As well. So as first time listeners might not know, but I work in, uh, at an automation company and, the software that we build automates menial tasks, such as entering things from a spreadsheet into a database so that they can do them very quickly on schedules repeatedly so that a human doesn't have to do it. Now, the idea is that this frees up the human to do more important things that make better use of a human brain, and that's something I do agree with, fundamentally, as an idea is the ability to make it so that humans are actually doing important things. And the way I see AI being talked about tends to be more in that vein is that we're automating stuff that, really, when we take those tasks in isolation are just menial, busy work. And I think that's where we're gonna get, certainly in the short term, that's where we're gonna get these immediate term, uh, like returns rather. Um, but that is, that's like one side of things. There is of course like the side of generated art and generated design. Yep, and I think what, so what do you think of that? We talked about the Dribble effect in our first ever episode. Um, and I think, well, you tell me, what do you think?

Paul: 15:26

Just, uh, This is just so you can get a cup of coffee.

Mark: 15:29

Mm

Paul: 15:30

Nice!

Mark: 15:30

hmm. Absolutely. Yes.

Paul: 15:32

Um, so, yeah. So it's interesting, isn't it? Because, like, you can There's, uh, plugins for, like, Figma and, um, Photoshop you can generate backgrounds or AI, you know, you can put like, Ahh, I want an interface for an e commerce store and it'll generate the user interface for you, which I think it's okay. It's a good starting point, it'll kind of make you think about some of the things you need on there, but yeah, you don't want to get that blandness do you, kind of like being very generic. Others are the same, all the same. You want something unique. And I think that's where, I always strive for, that it's something unique and I know when we've worked together in the past, Mark, I've been against using, you know, off the shelf design systems and off the shelf, Material Design or, Carbon Design system you know, all the other things out there, because generally it doesn't give your brand a personality. It doesn't give it that USP from the rest of the market, if everything was Material Design. Yeah, it might be quite a nice kind of like, everyone will be used to, uh, you know, the same thing and, but, it's the same as like, we'd all be driving a Ford Focus. Do people all want to drive a Ford Focus? I don't think so.

Mark: 16:59

That's it and there's very limited room for innovation as well. I think

Paul: 17:04

yeah, yeah. And I think

Mark: 17:05

If, yeah, if we were to take what AI spits out, instead of thinking of it as a starting point, we say that right, that's the final product. That's the essay I'm going to hand in with its insights from the world of wizardry.

Paul: 17:19

I want to read that now.

Mark: 17:22

I know, I know. And if they don't follow your leadership style, just burn them to death with your fireballs.

Paul: 17:33

That's, um, that's Leadership 101, right there!

Mark: 17:36

Mm Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's that's going to be in my book that I write on on UX leadership.

Paul: 17:42

Love it.

Mark: 17:44

But yeah I think what we're finding is that AI is currently good at taking disparate pieces of information and bringing them together. Now that is an important step In any kind of creative human endeavor. That's why we always use reference material when we're drawing or, or designing something. But where it's not, what it's not able to do, I don't, I don't think. Certainly not yet. And I'm not so sure it ever will be able to. Is take those parts and tilt them into a completely different perspective. And, and think about new ways of approaching. What is an old concept altogether? I don't think there's any evidence that I've seen of that really happening. That is being created by AI.

Paul: 18:26

Well you say that, but I think AI thinks that humans have at least six fingers.

Mark: 18:32

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's true. Yeah.

Paul: 18:34

ha. Ha ha.

Mark: 18:35

It's planning the next evolution humanity and we're like some horrible Elden Ring George RR Martin hand creature with a million fingers!

Paul: 18:46

Yeah. I can only imagine that it's fed like the size of iPhones and Android phones nowadays. So, yeah. You need those many fingers to kind of wrap your hands around them.

Mark: 18:57

God.

Paul: 18:58

ha. But,

Mark: 18:58

Like basketball mittens!

Paul: 19:00

I can't. Ha ha ha.

Mark: 19:02

it. Oh, take that Foley work for,

Paul: 19:08

yeah, yeah. Ha ha ha. Um, But, um, But yeah. Oh God. Some, some, like, some of the AI art that was absolutely amazing and where, where it excels, I think it is, is the fantasy realm. And you know, that kind of, I've seen some like really weird and, and exciting creatures being made out of AI

Mark: 19:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: 19:31

But, yeah. Realistic ones. I think I saw one. Uh, I've, uh, somebody put a prompt in, hipster people pitching at Cannes. and had a row of people sitting on these chairs, kind of look like Cannes. Uh, I can't really say for sure. And then one of the women had a... An extra finger was like about twice as long, like a man had a lady's leg, coming out of one of his other

Mark: 20:00

Mm-hmm.

Paul: 20:01

I know. And there, and, and what was, what was disappointing in this though, they were all white people,

Mark: 20:09

Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: 20:10

sat in front and I think the crowd was white. And again, it's that bias of AI that are we. Going to go into, the bloody Nazi territory?

Mark: 20:23

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul: 20:24

And we were talking about this the other night, Mark, we had a lovely, uh, meal out thanks to Gravitas. Uh, so, shameless

Mark: 20:31

The way you said that just made it sound like you and I went out for a date.

Paul: 20:35

Oh, well. Well, I kind of, yeah. I wouldn't be disappointed,

Mark: 20:38

it that. me either. Me either. That will happen again at some point. yeah, we were invited out for a UX roundtable with, hosted by Gravitas Recruitment, so thank you for that. we were talking a lot about This kind of thing there. Yeah.

Paul: 20:56

What did you talk about? There was something you said about, I was going to use, but I totally forgot what it was.

Mark: 21:04

I don't remember. I like six glasses of wine deep at this point.

Paul: 21:08

That might explain it.

Mark: 21:10

yeah. Mm-hmm.

Paul: 21:11

Um, but I have seen, I have seen kind of some, uh, you know, like user researchers. So, you know, kind of like, you know, maybe, you know, they're more on the research side and more analytical thinking and they use AI to help depict blueprints and service design and, and those, interfaces that say, Oh, you know, somebody, and again, you can't always do this or you'll take like three hours doing a drawing, uh, and kind of depicting what that is. You know, AI can really help with that and explain a process to you. Um, so there are those, there are those things. I think when it's done right and well. But I think it is, as you say, it's so disparate at the minute. And it's so, it's so immature. Um, that it's hard to know what to do and where to go and things like this.

Mark: 22:09

I think a lot of what's happening as well is because of the rate at which it's grown,'cause of the rate at which it's been talked about on the media, there's an immediate push to, regulate it and to make it closed source and things like this. I remember, it was a petition went around to, you know, start regulating open source AI software.

Paul: 22:35

Oh yes,

Mark: 22:36

Now this got a lot of traction because of, a particular set of Billionaires who wanted to, who signed this petition, who wanted to, or believed, or at least ostensibly believed that it should be more heavily regulated. Now, I wouldn't say I'm, I, I have any special kind of spooky insight into any of this, but I do tend to believe that the Bill Gates and the Elon Musks. And the Jeff Bezos's of this world have, I should say an ulterior motive, they have, you know, they have certain things that they want to maintain about themselves, such as being, richer than countries. and I think that when you have. Something that's open source and anyone can use it. I personally think that that has been seen as a threat by individuals who are trying to invest. I mean, there's no way that Elon Musk isn't investing in, um, AI technology for his own products, for his own services, et cetera, et cetera. And those are all going to be closed source, private. Privately developed guarded secrets, but if it turns out that the the first most immediate and best thing on the shelf is completely free because it's been created by Thousands and thousands of people then I think it really compromises the value, shall we say, that someone could generate, in other words, the money someone could make off pushing a, an exclusive private product. I think it's totally cynical, thing, reason why they want to regulate, because the thing that they specifically wanted regulating was the open source stuff. They didn't want their own. no mention of own stuff being regulated. Um, so I'm, I'm calling bullshit on that to be honest. I think, yeah, I think who's going to guard the guardsmen? Who's going to regulate this? Who, who are we going to put, give that authority to decide what we as designers? Uh, we as intelligent individuals, so we like to think, are able to, able to, to use and, and, and how we're able to use it. Do we, because is it, is it people like Jeff Bezos and, and Elon Musk that want this, what they want to set the, the regulations,

Paul: 25:04

Yeah, yeah,

Mark: 25:05

or do we leave it to, to government think tanks who will take months and months to, to conceptualize anything?.

Paul: 25:13

yeah, yeah. It's also interesting though, that when open source software, quite a few this happens. I think, is it the Facebook one? The Lambda? Um, and they say, oh we've got this open source. But it's the tiny, tiny part of the front end layer that's the source. And you can't actually Get any of the models or any of the sources they've been using. It's just kind of like the API's at the front end and it's just again, it's another way for them to kind of go like, Oh, well, somebody can develop something on this, but all we've got all the keys behind the door, and I do get, you know, AI isn't the cheapest tech to make, you know, you've got to have some sort of return on it, some investment, but at the same time, I think You've got to do it in a, in a way that people everywhere are contributing to kind of input into. And if you're going to do open source, make it properly open source. And like, yeah, if you're going to regulate it, kind of regulate it everywhere. Not just the open source stuff.

Mark: 26:22

Yeah, exactly, exactly. I think, you know, that the ethics behind AI is a huge concern at the minute. But it's like, it's like any tool, you know, you have ethics behind a hammer. In that you don't use it to stove someone else's skull in.

Paul: 26:40

There is that. Yeah.

Mark: 26:41

Uh, ideally. There are many, many occasions when it is used to stove people's skulls in. that doesn't mean that we then bam hammers from everyday use. may regulate who could access them to a degree. We're not, shouldn't be selling them to children. Um,

Paul: 27:00

you can, you can, I don't think there's any legislation where you can't sell a hammer to a child?

Mark: 27:05

No, I don't think there is. That's just my opinion that I think there probably should be. I mean, can't sell eggs. To, in certain parts of the country, to people under 16, yeah, um, but yeah, and likewise. You know, we have little toy kits that have little toy hammers in and stuff like that, a hammer is probably the first thing, tool, a kid will use when playing around, so know, making a murderer right there. we apply,

Paul: 27:35

ha!

Mark: 27:36

if we apply the sensationalist logic that's going around.

Paul: 27:40

ha, ha, well, this took a dark turn. But I I like it. ha, ha,

Mark: 27:46

It needs to. This is it. But, um, yeah, because I think that, I do think that that's kind of how a lot of people are talking about AI.

Paul: 27:54

Yeah, yeah, I, I agree. Yeah, yeah. And it's like, I think Hollywood films don't help with this as well. I mean, you've got, um, you know, the AI, Will Smith, that...

Mark: 28:06

Mm hmm.

Paul: 28:07

uh, many years ago where, um, AI tried to destroy humanity. Terminator is another classic

Mark: 28:13

Yeah, yeah. is true.

Paul: 28:16

Arnold Schwarzenegger tried to, yeah, eliminate the

Mark: 28:19

to serve us?

Paul: 28:20

Well, yeah, I'm never quite sure. Uh, I think on the later films he's trying to save us. In the first few he was.

Mark: 28:26

Okay,

Paul: 28:27

uh, yeah. But yeah,

Mark: 28:31

because I think... The, the end goal for a lot of AI innovators. Is very different from what we try to achieve as user experience designers. I think from what I've heard from, um, is it, is it, uh, Deep Blue? Is that the name of the AI? Is it

Paul: 28:52

Oh, yeah, uh, Bard, Bard.

Mark: 28:55

Oh, is that Bard? well, I don't know what I'm fucking talking

Paul: 28:58

Oh, that's the chess. Uh,

Mark: 29:00

oh, is it?

Paul: 29:01

computer.

Mark: 29:02

Right. Okay, well, um, anyway, the, the developer at the, uh, AI labs in, in Google has, you know, has had interviews, I was gonna say gone on record, but has had interviews where he said that his... End gold for his personal end goal with AI is to do, do, see it, do something. Which essentially sentient

Paul: 29:24

Yeah,

Mark: 29:25

or have an original thought or create something that's genuinely new. Uh, and that's quite, that's seen as the end goal for I think a few of these developers, and I think it's a, that's a fine aspiration personally. I don't think that's, what's going to lead up to, uh, to Skynet or anything like that. I think. However, what we differ, differ as UX designers is that we're trying to, actually build a pathway for people to, to use these tools in a way, because I don't think there is. Well, there isn't. If you just take the AI as it is, it's useless. You need some, you need an interface to interface with it. Yeah. Um, so that's it. I think that's what we're, we're here to do,

Paul: 30:09

yeah. Unless you're, you know, a developer and you've got developer skills.

Mark: 30:14

I suppose. Yeah. Yeah. Then you can just speak to it directly.

Paul: 30:16

Yeah. But then you still need an interface to do that. Whether it's a terminal window or, yeah, some

Mark: 30:23

that's not a very good experience either, Paul. You should know this

Paul: 30:27

I know it is not. It is not.

Mark: 30:30

It's what we put mass market. Um, yeah. Um,

Paul: 30:36

but yeah, it's interesting. It's interesting. We've got, um, I'm sure we could talk about this for a long time. But I think. I can see in the corner of your room, Mark, it needs a little dust, I must say. The giant UX Tombola machine. But,

Mark: 30:55

course. Yeah, I that over from Nick's. Um, there's no balls in it right now

Paul: 31:00

Oh,

Mark: 31:01

just gonna have to put them. I'm gonna insert a sound effect of me putting balls into this

Paul: 31:05

Yeah, yeah. Bulls. Bulls. Why? Why balls?

Mark: 31:11

That's what you have isn't it isn't it tombola oh, I'm thinking of bingo machines

Paul: 31:15

bingo? Yeah, yeah.

Mark: 31:17

Well, I've written everything on the tiny balls now, so it has to go on then, with no choice Um, so yeah, um, I'm not sure what we're, uh, what we're going to get today, but I'm going to spin the tombola machine, right now!

Paul: 31:32

Yeah, yeah, no pressure, Mark.

Mark: 31:33

No pressure. I've never done this before. it's usually Nick's job,

Paul: 31:37

Yeah. Yeah,

Mark: 31:37

he went and had children. So

Paul: 31:40

I know. There's a lot of furious hand action going on

Mark: 31:45

there always is me and a tombola machine. Can't get enough. Right. Okay.

Paul: 31:51

Have you warmed your balls up?

Mark: 31:52

I hope they're all, they're all, uh, practically fireballs now. Yes. Right. Okay. And I have.

Paul: 32:01

do do do

Mark: 32:07

No idea.

Paul: 32:10

do can I suggest then the one I think I found one of your balls behind the back of my sofa the day!

Mark: 32:23

Oh, yes

Paul: 32:24

Yeah

Mark: 32:25

after one of our dates. Yeah.

Paul: 32:26

After yeah And, um, it read lampshades.

Mark: 32:32

Oh Okay

Paul: 32:34

the UX of lampshades. Yeah,

Mark: 32:37

This is very interesting. I follow someone on Instagram who makes her own lampshades and sells them they're Incredibly complicated, beautiful vintage style things. Uh, about 300 pound to go. So they're not, they're not cheap.

Paul: 32:54

Yeah, yeah.

Mark: 32:54

Yeah. Lampshades well, what do you think about lampshades then?

Paul: 32:59

Well, I kind of like, are they pointless? That's, that's my, the, if you wanted a minimal kind of like feel, just have a lightbulb. and I'd do away with it.

Mark: 33:10

There are a lot of aesthetics that do that. You've got, my kitchen has, lights that are. built into the ceiling, so no shade on them. The other two have these so called energy serving bulbs, which just means that they're unreasonably dim.

Paul: 33:25

yeah, I guess.

Mark: 33:27

and, and then what I did was I invested in, because, because I thought it looks nice, some light shades that on the inside are copper. And on the outside, a grey Harris tweed. Yeah. And so I put them on, and they basically sapped out this small amount of light that was being provided by the lightbulbs. So I now have two beautiful light shades and get to sit in complete darkness to appreciate them.

Paul: 33:54

I guess. This is true. And one of my problems with, like, lamp shades in general is like they, I suppose they diffuse the light so you don't stare directly at light bulbs and you get this kind of weird when you've not, you know, when you've stared at for like minutes,

Mark: 34:13

blob your vision

Paul: 34:14

in the back of your retina.

Mark: 34:15

Yeah. Legal blindness.

Paul: 34:19

Yeah. But apart from that, yeah, I don't, and, and a lot of light bulbs nowadays, especially the energy efficient ones, they're kind of behind, uh, Uh, a smoky dome or an opaque dome. So you don't really see the, the candende... What is it? Candendescence? Incandescence? That's, that's the word, element. So can, yeah, it's weird, isn't it? So why... Lampshades are,

Mark: 34:47

well, I think there is, because you're right. You can get, you can get, I know of course you can get smart light bulbs where you can directly control the lumens, that are coming out of them..

Paul: 35:04

yeah, yeah,

Mark: 35:05

That are shaded, but the, the way that they are built is they take up a lot, much larger space the light source is a much larger space than, you get with a light bulb. And I think that, that is kind of, that's where you really don't need a light shade because it's spread out properly, defuses over, my least favorite light shade ever. Is one that is, because I have, I have, I have a least favourite lightshade. yeah, uh, is, the one you get from Ikea. It's an Ikea lightshade, and it's a, it's a bit like a... A disco ball crossed with like a puzzle piece, like a jigsaw puzzle rather. you pull, you pull a cord on and it kind of balloons out and lets more light through. Now, all intents and purposes, it's not a bad idea, but I just think they look absolutely fucking hideous. So I don't want that anywhere near me.

Paul: 36:02

Yeah. You know, the, they're actually based on the Death star

Mark: 36:08

are they really?

Paul: 36:09

Yeah, yeah, yeah,

Mark: 36:10

Of course they Is that modelled after when it's blown to smithereens? Spoilers alert!

Paul: 36:15

yeah, yeah.

Mark: 36:16

If you haven't seen that, war, that war film yet, about the stars, yeah, modelled after the explosion the end.

Paul: 36:24

But I don't, I don't get on those. That when you close it, it's pretty much like turning the light off. So you go to the wall, press the switch, and hey, you've got the same effect.

Mark: 36:38

Yeah, yeah. That's it. And that kind of comes with the light, you

Paul: 36:41

Yeah, yeah. It's a bit of a weird one, but yeah, I don't mind those. I do own one. Perhaps why.

Mark: 36:49

That doesn't surprise me. I don't, I don't, I can't stand them. don't know why. It's the way they look. It's just not my aesthetic I'm a, I'm a, an old fashioned Tiffany lamp person. I like, I like stained glass art deco, sconces and things like that. With like leaded paneling and things. So, um, not real lead, I presume.

Paul: 37:12

Well,

Mark: 37:12

If it gets too hot, then you go mad. From lead fumes?

Paul: 37:18

yeah, there is the, yeah. Um, I don't think nowadays, but if you get an antique one, should imagine. Yeah. Yeah.

Mark: 37:25

fun. That would be fun!

Paul: 37:26

Yeah. That would be

Mark: 37:27

fun! What a way to go. Well, how do we improve the light shade then?

Paul: 37:33

Oh, um,

Mark: 37:35

do a better job of designing the IKEA one? Maybe when,

Paul: 37:38

think I think that's past saving unless

Mark: 37:40

yeah.

Paul: 37:41

want death star.

Mark: 37:42

Um, you always do, Paul. always want to Death Star.

Paul: 37:46

well, yeah, was, there was...

Mark: 37:47

Well, you do get, you do get quite elaborate things that when you switch them on, the lights and stuff unfold. And the shades unfold and that. And maybe you could have one that was responsive to the time of the day or, or, using AI.

Paul: 38:02

Ooh, yeah.

Mark: 38:03

track a bulb that could track where you, your face was. And it wasn't shining brightly directly into your eyes.

Paul: 38:11

ooh. Yeah, I like

Mark: 38:13

So you never got the splotchiness.

Paul: 38:15

Yeah, I like it. What, should we come up with a name for it? What's it...

Mark: 38:19

Oh God. This is that Nick's always really good at. I don't know.

Paul: 38:25

Uh...

Mark: 38:25

Like,

Paul: 38:27

It... I mean...

Mark: 38:29

face light. That's all I can think.

Paul: 38:32

Ha ha ha ha

Mark: 38:33

Like this. There's got to be some pun related to, to like,

Paul: 38:39

Yeah.

Mark: 38:40

Light of My Life.

Paul: 38:42

A light of my life!

Mark: 38:44

That's horrible.

Paul: 38:45

That is, sounds an 80s boy band,

Mark: 38:49

It does, doesn't it?

Paul: 38:50

yeah,

Mark: 38:51

Incidentally, on their videos, Light of My Life's music video, They use our Light of My Life solution to create the diffused 80s glow effect all over the lenses.

Paul: 39:05

I thought that was Vaseline,

Mark: 39:06

Well, yeah, it used to be, but, you know, they wanted to jump on the AI faster horse, so... They got invested like hundreds of thousands... We know how much it's going to cost.

Paul: 39:19

yeah,

Mark: 39:20

12

Paul: 39:21

million pounds.

Mark: 39:27

million pounds.

Paul: 39:30

What was it? What's, what's the standard price? 38, 49,

Mark: 39:37

That's it.

Paul: 39:38

50, that's the one. Uh, what, what about, um, we come up with, um, the, I'm trying to, I'm trying to weave in AI into the name. So maybe,

Mark: 39:56

Oh, just LAImp. Lamp with an AI in the middle of it. But the logo, you make the AI big.

Paul: 40:07

Oh,

Mark: 40:08

And you've got L and A and M and P on either

Paul: 40:11

oh, I've got it. I've got it. Just adapting that slightly. I think we should call it the LAIm love

Mark: 40:19

the LAIm lamp,

Paul: 40:21

Yeah. Or l Lame. Lame

Mark: 40:25

LAIm. I love it. Yeah, that's it. Right, okay.

Paul: 40:32

Take it away. Sell it.

Mark: 40:33

right. Okay. Hello, I'm Mark Steeler. Welcome to Mark Steeler's Bolton Arcade. are you spending your days, your waking hours, staring blindly into lights contemplating the failure of your arcades and other business enterprises like me? I mean, well I've got just the solution for you. We are now selling the LAImp, and what it does is it makes sure that whatever you're looking at it, it goes dark enough so that you can't hurt yourself. Other than perhaps walking into furniture that you can't see because it's too dark. That is the LAIMp. It will save your eyes in the long run, but maybe not your shins. Lots of love. Mark Steeler. Mwah.£49.50. Thank Mark.

Paul: 41:17

I miss Mark. I've missed Mark. I, I'm, I'm glad he's. Ah, well, I'm glad he's still trading. I was worried. I was worried about him.

Mark: 41:29

I hear you. I get messages. I mean, I say I get messages. The way that Mark Steeler sends messages is like, he gets envelopes and sticks, newspaper clippings. So yeah, it's very confusing.

Paul: 41:44

Does, does he keep asking you, uh, quite bluntly for£49.50?

Mark: 41:49

yeah. To be honest. Yeah. You know, he considers it his product newsletter, you see, but, in fact, it's just a very, very thinly veiled threat, to anyone who's bought a previous product and, and not un ticked the box to get his newsletter.

Paul: 42:07

I didn't think you could untick it. I thought it was like one of those dark UX things?

Mark: 42:11

This is it. It is very dark. You know, to go, you have to go into the inspect panel on Chrome and take tick it there!

Paul: 42:20

Ah, love it. I love it. Well, we're back.

Mark: 42:25

That's it!

Paul: 42:26

Yeah, I love

Mark: 42:27

A nice short and sweet test run in a way, but, I had a lot of fun. I think it's always going to be, AI I think is going to be a subject that it'll be interesting to come back to.

Paul: 42:37

Definitely.

Mark: 42:38

Especially because you have your own, interests, I certainly do as well. Certainly around, like, language learning and that. and assisting, AI assistance in the classrooms and that. So we've got lots more to talk about there. Um, maybe it's something that we can come back to in, in a future episode.

Paul: 42:56

Yeah, we might get some expert AI person.

Mark: 43:01

Yeah, that's it. would be incredible.

Paul: 43:03

Yeah. Anybody who wants to be on a guest, drop us a note on our socials@FasterHorsesUX

Mark: 43:10

Mm hmm. it.

Paul: 43:12

Yeah. God, I've remembered it after a year.

Mark: 43:14

no I wouldn't have remembered as you faster horses and then but no, it's faster horses UX. That's on all the socials.

Paul: 43:22

They're all the socials. Uh, except TikTok.

Mark: 43:25

Oh Yeah, we probably need to fix that as well

Paul: 43:27

Yeah, maybe.

Mark: 43:30

Tick tock is an alien landscape to me.

Paul: 43:33

It's,

Mark: 43:34

bizarre. Yes

Paul: 43:36

Ha ha ha And one for another day. The UX of TikTok.

Mark: 43:41

exactly

Paul: 43:42

ha ha ha! We'll do a, we'll do a live episode where Mark gets introduced to TikTok for the first ever time, and then we'll see his reaction to that!

Mark: 43:52

Make, we'll make a Faster Horses TikTok and do some of the weird synchronized dancing

Paul: 43:59

Oh, yes.

Mark: 44:01

happens and find some horse related piece of music to do it to.

Paul: 44:06

And if you're listening to this, I'm doing a, nice tango. To accompany this,

Mark: 44:11

It's true, it's true right now. It's beautiful really,

Paul: 44:15

Thank you.

Mark: 44:16

but you can put your clothes back on now, Paul. All right.

Paul: 44:24

Alright, well, I will put the tombola balls back.

Mark: 44:28

Mm

Paul: 44:29

in the truest sense of word.

Mark: 44:33

Some Tombola balls can't be put back into the tombola machine once they've been spoken, Paul.

Paul: 44:39

And, um, and we'll, uh, hopefully if we haven't put you off this episode, we'll see you on another similar crazy episode

Mark: 44:49

We absolutely will. We absolutely will.

Paul: 44:51

two weeks time.

Mark: 44:52

Mm hmm. Until then.

Paul: 44:54

Peace./

Horse: 44:57

Grrrrrrrrr

Outro: 44:58

This has been faster horses with your host paul Wilshaw and Mark Sutcliffe.